New Species of Purple Frog

A new species of Purple Frog has been discovered from the eastern slopes of the Western Ghats. What makes this exciting to me is the fact that the Purple Frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis) was the only member of the family Nasikabatrachidae and now there’s two members of the family.

There are some minor differences between the two Purple Frogs. The new Purple Frog species (Nasikabatrachus bhupathi) breeds during the northeast monsoon season while the old Purple Frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis) breeds during the southwest monsoon season. The calls of the male frogs are different between the species.

The new Purple frog’s scientific name is in memorial of s Dr. S. Bhupathy who passed away on a herp survey in 2014 in the Western Ghats.